


3:04 am

by littlegrayraincloud



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Third Person Limited, Party, Pre-Slash, caring!arthur, peacekeeping!leon, protective!Gwaine, rated for language and bad choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:11:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlegrayraincloud/pseuds/littlegrayraincloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The caller ID read “Merlin” and instantly, all of Arthur’s annoyance disappeared, leaving confusion in its place.  Merlin would never call this late.  Merlin would never even be AWAKE this late. He was one of those weird people who LIKED going to bed and getting up early. What on Earth….?</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Hello?” he mumbled after he hit the “connect” button.  Although he was awake enough to process what was going on, his brain was having a little trouble connecting thoughts to voice.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“A-Arthur?” a voice came through, shaking a little.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Merlin? What is it?”</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“I-I think I am in t-trouble.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	3:04 am

**Author's Note:**

> So...this is my first fic. Ever. It had been floating around my head for a few days, so I figured what the heck.
> 
> Not beta'd, not brit-picked.
> 
> Also, I am not by any means educated in the field of medicine, so...just roll with it, please?
> 
> Any suggestions/comments/concrit is welcome!

Arthur opened his eyes and looked around blearily, trying to figure out what it was that woke him. It only took a moment to realize it was his mobile, buzzing on the table next to his bed.

 _What time is it?_ he thought as he rolled over and grabbed the offending device. As he turned, he saw the bight numbers on the clock next to the phone read 3:04 am. _Who the fuck would be calling this late? Or early? Whatever._

The caller ID read “Merlin” and instantly, all of Arthur’s annoyance disappeared, leaving confusion in its place. Merlin would never call this late. Merlin would never even be AWAKE this late. He was one of those weird people who LIKED going to bed and getting up early. _What on Earth….?_

“Hello?” he mumbled after he hit the “connect” button. Although he was awake enough to process what was going on, his brain was having a little trouble connecting thoughts to voice.

“A-Arthur?” a voice came through, shaking a little.

“Merlin? What is it?”

“I-I think I am in t-trouble.”

Arthur’s eyes shot open, and he sat up quickly, ready for action. “Merlin, what do you mean? What happened?”

“I-I’m not sure. I was at Cenred’s party. N-now I am not. I d-don’t know where I am. I’m c-cold.”

Arthur was up in an instant, pulling on the jeans he had left on the floor when he undressed for bed the night before. He cradled the mobile between his shoulder and his cheek as he pulled, zipped, and buttoned. “Are you indoors, or outdoors? Does anything look familiar?” While he was concerned about why Merlin was at Cenred’s party, especially since Cenred had broken up with Merlin months ago, he knew that finding his friend was a more immediate concern.

“Outdoors. There are trees. I-I think I am sitting on a bench.”

“Okay, I need you to listen to me. You know that map app on your mobile that you refuse to use? It can tell you where you are. Just open the app, and tell it to show your current location,” Arthur directed, trying to keep his voice calm. He walked out of his room and down the hall to Gwaine’s room. Arthur was going to need a car, and Gwaine was the only one in the house who had one and might actually be awake enough to drive.

“Map app?” Merlin sounded thoroughly confused.

“Look at your screen. Should be on the left side. Looks like a map.” Arthur knocked on the door and opened it as soon as he heard Gwaine grunt a response, indicating he was, in fact, still awake. Arthur had learned the hard way that it was always better to wait for Gwaine to answer before entering his room. Gwaine was currently sitting on his bed, laptop on his legs as he leaned back against the headboard. And, miraculously, he was mostly clothed. Arthur had seen far too much of his housemate’s person in the year that they had lived together.

“I see it. Um…”

Arthur covered the microphone on his mobile. “I need a ride.”

“This late? What the hell for?” Gwaine asked, not looking up from his screen.

“Merlin is in trouble. I need to go get him.” Arthur had barely finished the first sentence before Gwaine shoved his laptop off his legs and jumped off the bed.

“Where is he?” Gwaine asked as he tugged on a sweatshirt that had been tossed on a chair.

“Arthur?” Merlin’s voice came through the earpiece once again.

“I’m here. What does the app say?” Arthur asked, uncovering the mic.

“Um...says...I’m at the...park. Avalon. I think it’s…the one...with the pond.” Merlin’s voice began to sound a little faint.

“Merlin, are you okay?” Arthur was losing control over the calm in his voice. He knew the park, and it wasn’t too far from where Cenred’s party had been, but he still worried about the fact that Merlin didn’t seem to know what had led him to be there.

He and Gwaine hurried down the stairs and out the front door.

“ ‘m cold. And tired,” Merlin’s voice mumbled in response after a moment.

“We are on our way. I want you to stay on the line, Merlin. Keep talking to me.” Arthur suppressed a shiver as he and Gwaine climbed into the car. It was a chilly spring night, and Arthur could feel the night air creep through to his skin through the coat he had thrown on as he had left the house.

“I’ll...try…”

* * *

10 minutes later, Gwaine stopped the car in the car park next to the park. Arthur had kept Merlin on the line, asking him questions to keep him responsive while the men drove for what felt to Arthur like an eternity.

“Okay Merlin, we are in the car park. We need to know where you are.”

“I….dunno…..trees….bench.”

“Mate, this is a big park. We should split up to look for him,” Gwaine suggested. Arthur nodded.

“He says he is sitting on a bench and that there are trees. He should be along the main path. I’ll take this direction, you take that one. You have your mobile?”

Gwaine nodded, and rushed off to look for their friend. Arthur took off down his own path.

Luckily, the park’s main path, the one with the benches, was a loop, so one of the men was bound to find Merlin before they would meet on the path. Unfortunately, the path ran around a large pond, and through some heavily wooded areas, so there was no easy way to cut from one side of the park to the other aside from just staying on the path.

Arthur kept trying to keep Merlin alert, asking him random questions about anything he could think of. They had been friends for so long that he knew all of the answers, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he needed to keep his friend awake until he was found.

Arthur had not been on the path for more than five minutes before he heard Gwaine’s voice on the other end of the line. “Merlin? Mate? What happened?” Gwaine’s voice asked.

Arthur heard Merlin mumble something in response. Arthur stopped and turned around to head back the direction that he had come from, back towards the car park, so that he could get on the part of the loop that Gwaine had been assigned.

“Arthur?” Gwaine’s voice came through on the mobile. He must have picked up the mobile and was talking into it, as his voice was louder now than it had been before. Arthur winced. He had gotten so used to hearing Merlin’s soft, mumbled answers that Gwaine’s voice, even though he had been talking at a normal volume, was far too loud.

“Yeah.”

“Mate, he is shivering like mad. I am going to bring him back to the car. I’ll meet you there?”

“Alright.” Arthur began jogging back to the car as soon as he disconnected the call. Now that he wasn’t focused on asking Merlin random questions to keep him alert, all of the important questions began to swim around his head. Why was Merlin at Cenred’s party? What happened to him there? Had he just too much to drink? Was there something in his drink? How did he get this far from Cenred’s condo? Was this some sort of dumb-ass prank pulled by Cenred or one of his cronies?

“Shit,” was all that managed to make its way from Arthur’s brain to his mouth as he arrived at the car park and saw Gwaine on the other path, slowly moving while propping Merlin up as they, too, walked towards the car park. Arthur jogged over to the two men and grabbed Merlin’s arm and placed it over his shoulders to help carry him. He couldn’t help but notice how much his friend was shivering, and worry about what could have led to him being out on this cold of a night without his favorite leather coat.

“Merlin, what happened? Why were you at Cenred’s?” Arthur asked. Merlin mumbled something that neither Arthur nor Gwaine could make out, and the two men exchanged a look over their friend’s head. Gwaine pulled out his mobile and dialed their house-mate, Leon. Leon wasn’t going to be happy about being woken up in the middle of the night, but he was the most likely to know what to do with Merlin.

“Leon? Gwaine here. Listen, I know---No, I don’t know exactly what time it is. Look, it’s important. Merlin’s in a bad way. Arthur and I just found him in the park, and he doesn’t remember how he got here. And we don’t know how long he’s been out here. And he hasn’t got his coat and is shivering, but I don’t know if it is just from the cold. Can you have a look at him if we bring him to the house? No, the house is closer than the hospital. Besides, you know how long it will take them to even look at him. You are a nurse, you can at least tell us if it is worth our time to take him in.”

By this time, they were back at the car, and Arthur was climbing into the back seat, pulling Merlin in behind him so he could wrap him in a coat that was lying on the floor and hold the barely conscious man upright. Gwaine closed the door, and walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in, putting the phone in its holder on the dash and switching it to speaker.

“Mate, you are on speaker now. You can ask him yourself,” Gwaine said to Leon as he turned the key in the ignition.

“Merlin, can you hear me?” Leon’s voice asked.

“He isn’t really coherent, Leon,” Arthur responded. “He is mumbling, but it doesn’t really make sense.”

“Alright, I’ll talk to him once you are back at the house. Try to keep him awake. See you in a few.” The line disconnected.

* * *

Gwaine managed to get back to the house in about half the time it had taken them to get to the park. Leon was already opening the door as Gwaine and Arthur were trying to get the still shivering, but still somewhat awake Merlin out of the back seat of the car.

“Bring him into the spare room,” Leon instructed as they started up the path to the front door.

After they had him settled on the bed in the spare room, which used to be Lance’s room, Gwaine left Leon and Arthur to take care of Merlin while he started a pot of coffee and the tea kettle. There was no way any of them were going to bed now. Also, he had to make a phone call that was long overdue.

With Arthur’s help, Leon managed to get Merlin to sit up and answer a few basic questions about the evening’s events. Merlin had gone to the party around 9 with some guy he met in a class named Gil, but couldn’t remember when he had left, or if he left on his own. He didn’t remember seeing Gil once they got to the party. He didn’t remember how much he had had to drink, but he figured it might have been too much.

Leon was about to ask Arthur to help Merlin unwrap from the blanket and coat that were warming the man up when they heard shouting from within the house. Arthur left Merlin with Leon to go see what all of the commotion was about. He found Gawaine in the common area shouting at someone on his mobile.

“I don’t fucking care if you and he aren’t ‘a thing’ anymore, you ass! He was at YOUR party, therefore YOU should have paid a little more attention to how he was when he left and a little less attention to whatever-her-name-is! I don’t fucking care if he was there with some other bloke! You cheated, you dumped him, and then you invite him to a PARTY to celebrate YOU moving on?!” Arthur no longer wondered who Gwaine was talking to at 3:54 am, according to the clock in the kitchen. Cenred.

Gwaine looked up and made eye contact with Arthur and calmed down a little. “Look, man, we just need to know what happened to him while he was there. We found him in the park, and we need to know how he got there, or how long he’s been there. Did he take anything? Yes, I am aware that this is Merlin. I’m not asking if he took anything WILLINGLY.” Gwaine was starting to lose his cool again. “Look, I’m not saying YOU would have given him something. But I know the people who go to your parties.”

Arthur heard the door to the spare room open and Leon appeared in the common room. “Arthur, he is asking for you. I’m fairly certain that he’ll be fine, once he gets some rest and warmed up. Is Gwaine talking to Cenred?”

Arthur nodded as he walked back up the stairs to the spare room. He looked down into the common room before entering the spare room, and saw Leon take the phone from Gwaine and start asking the same questions of Cenred, but in a more calm, controlled, Leon way.

Merlin was still on the bed, but he was lying down, with his back to the door. He was wrapped up in the comforter that Lance had left behind in the linen closet. Even though it was warm in the house, and it was a good down comforter, Arthur could see that Merlin was still shivering, though not quite as violently as he had been in the park.

“Merlin?”

“Ar...thur,” Merlin mumbled.“ ‘m...s’ry….”

“For what?” Arthur was confused.

Before Merlin could answer, Leon came up behind Arthur and tapped him on the shoulder. “A moment?”

“Sure. Merlin, I’ll be right back.” Arthur stepped back into the hallway, closing the door to the spare room most of the way.

“I just talked to Cenred. He filled in a few details. He says that Merlin showed up at the party with some random bloke who ditched him, and that Merlin, instead of just leaving, tried to drink himself into oblivion. Then Cenred lost track of Merlin, and didn’t even notice he’d left until sometime after 12. He also says he did not directly invite Merlin to the party since it was for his and Sara’s engagement. He figures that Merlin heard about it through a mutual friend,” Leon explained.

“So he wasn’t drugged?” Arthur asked.

“Not as far as I can tell. It seems to me that he just wandered out to get air, ended up at the park, fell asleep, and woke up before he called you. He is really lucky you guys found him when you did. He needs rest, water, and warmth right now.”

“Okay...alright….” Arthur rubbed his face in his hands and tried to process everything that was going through his head at that moment.

Leon handed him a glass of water and a trash bin. “Here you go. Get him to drink the water, and you may need the bin if he gets sick. I am going to try to get another hour of sleep before I have to start my shift. Call Gwen if he gets any worse. She is off duty today. I’ll let her know what’s going on when I see her for coffee.”

Gwen worked with Leon at the hospital. She and Arthur dated for about a month, but both realized they were not meant to be. So she and Lance started dating and moved in together a few months later.

Leon walked back to his room and closed the door behind him. Arthur opened the door to the spare room again and walked inside this time, armed with a glass of water and the bin. “Merlin, I need you to wake up for a moment. You need to drink some water.” Arthur sat on the bed next to Merlin, who was still doing his impression of a caterpillar in a cocoon.

“Don’t...wanna…” came the murmured reply.

“Sorry, you don’t have a choice. Here. Come on.” Arthur set the glass down on the nightstand and shifted so he could help his friend sit up. Once Merlin was sitting up, or at least leaning against Arthur for support, Arthur grabbed the glass of water and held it up to Merlin’s mouth so he could drink it without having to come out of his cocoon. After he finished the water, he started shivering again.

“Still cold?” Arthur asked.

“...little…”

Arthur sighed. “Come here.” He unwrapped Merlin from his cocoon, helped him lay back down carefully on the bed, and laid down next to him so that they were sort of spooning. He pulled the comforter back over himself and Merlin and cuddled closer to his friend.

“Wha’...are...doing?” Merlin tried to form an actual sentence to vocalize his apprehension about the situation.

“You are cold. I am warm. I give you heat. You get warm. Now, go to sleep,” Arthur said, quietly.

“...mmmkay.”

Arthur felt Merlin’s body relax next to him, and felt himself relax as well. Just as he felt like he was about to fall asleep, he heard the door to the room open. "Arthur, I brought you a cup of tea---well then,” Arthur heard Gwaine’s amused voice say from the direction of the door.

“Shut up, Gwaine,” Arthur said quietly. He heard Gwaine chuckle lightly, set the cup down on the dresser, close the door, and listened as his footsteps went down the hall to Gwaine’s own room.

Arthur knew his comfort was going to be short-lived. He and Merlin were going to have a very uncomfortable conversation in the daytime. But for now, he could just relax, listening to the sound of Merlin breathing softly next to him. Arthur fell asleep, comfortably cuddling his best friend.


End file.
